Naveed Khan takes inspiration from another article we published to call for Hodgson to take greater prominence.

On Tuesday, Robert Sutherland wrote this piece on how the lack of communication from the club is causing friction among the fan base. Add to this the lack of joined-up strategy on and off the pitch, the issues with squad depth and three wins in nineteen, it is perhaps time for Roy Hodgson to increase his stature beyond that of Head Coach.

The manager is, in so many ways, the face of the club. He talks to the press pre and post-match. He is on the touchline and it is his team selections and tactics which get debated. Whatever hand he has been dealt with in the transfer market, he is judged on his results. For the equivalent of half a season now, the results have not been good enough – the full picture, including injuries and lack of backing in the transfer market is not shown in the record.

Hodgson is the fall guy. Regardless of what is going on at the club behind the scenes, the failings of the Sporting Director and the shortcomings of the owners, he is the face of it all and rather than (even correctly) point to the responsibility of others, he has to embrace being the fall guy.

Certain circumstances call for managers or head coaches to act not just like the man charged with coaching the team, but as if he is the manager of the club in a broader sense. Walking with the swagger of someone who owns the situation. Palace’s history is littered with such managers, whatever their success was on the pitch.

Malcolm Allison is still revered by fans who grew up with him managing the club despite multiple relegations. Steve Coppell is regarded by many as the best manager in the club’s history despite his hand in two Premier League relegations. For both, it was in no small part down to their standing up when adversity hit, taking the punches and then giving the fans something to hold on to. With the former, it was evolving the club’s identity. Coppell developed a team the fans could relate to.

There have been more recent examples. Neil Warnock stamped his mark on not just the team but the club when he first joined by giving academy player after academy player a debut. He knew the adversity post-Peter Taylor and the fans’ perception of him needed changing. Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce both imposed themselves on the club in their short tenures – it was clear they were fronting up to the situations they inherited the team in.

That is not to say Hodgson has not done that in his own quiet, dignified way. Following the Frank de Boer debacle, he most certainly did. But that was then. Now, the team is bottom of the form table, the squad has an imbalance to it and there is silence from the owners. Rather than concentrate just on preparing the team, the manager has to step up beyond his comfort zone.

The feeling is the club needs a galvanising force; something to unite the fans. Something which makes the fans feel closer to the club as it had been for much of the CPFC2010 era. The silence covered in Rob’s piece will not facilitate that – the only person who can now do that is the manager.

Team selections, tactical decisions, ignoring creative players and persisting with functional ones are all valid points of discussion around the manager. But that is not the point of this piece. At a time of uncertainty with the ownership, a standstill over Selhurst Park’s redevelopment and a stagnating squad, fans need a quick fix. We need to see something change. It is in the power of Hodgson to give us that change, that something to hold on to.

It could be any one of a number of things, from moving away from three defensive-minded midfielders to embracing one attacking one. It could be switching to a progressive 4-4-2, or setting up in a way to give Wilfried Zaha maximum freedom. Or, like with Norwich away, it could be putting trust in an academy player to make a difference to the first team.

What ultimately needs to change at Crystal Palace are elements of the ownership of the club and the associated vision and strategy going forward. Roy Hodgson cannot affect that change. But he can change what fans see on a match to match basis. He does not need to alter what has given him such longevity as a coach. He just needs to see what is happening around him at the club, understand the fans need hope and as the fall guy, he needs to give that hope to us. The mess may not be his making, but he is the one who needs to stand up while the owners remain silent.

Palace should have heeded past lessons, but instead had a repeat of the Pardew era which saw the club fall down the table, says Naveed Khan.

It's half way through the 2015/16 season and Crystal Palace sat fifth in the Premier League. Under the guidance of a manager whose attacking approach saw the club pick up among the highest number of points in the Premier League during 2015, a frugal January transfer window saw only the addition of Emmanuel Adebayor and Alan Pardew went on to win just two of the next 19 league games. It went on to become part of a horrendous 2016 in which the manager picked up only 26 points from 36 games.

Cut to January 2020, Crystal Palace sit comfortably in the top half of the Premier League, following a 2019 which saw Palace pick up the seventh highest number of points in the Premier League, based on Roy Hodgson’s structured, functional approach. The January transfer window has again been one of frustration – the loan signing of Cenk Tosun being the only addition despite the manager saying he wanted “four or five” signings.

Cup run aside, there are parallels to that season under Pardew. A manager unwilling to alter his tactical approach. A manager unwilling to drop certain players or give alternatives a fair run in the side. A board which did not build upon the early season success, instead allowing complacency to set in. The hope under Hodgson is that he will not let complacency to take hold in the way that Pardew did.

Apart from managerial ability, there are signs that Hodgson will approach it differently to Pardew. For one, the latter didn’t seem to object to the lack of transfer activity. The former, on the other hand, has been vocal throughout the window – he has spoken of the number of players he wants to sign, he detailed positions, he called out Josh Harris and Dave Blitzer for not being on the same page as Steve Parish in regards to spending money in transfers. He also said he did not want the club to sign free transfers and loans. He was given a striker on loan.

Hodgson has previously demonstrated that he has the tactical acumen to arrest a slide down the league in a way Pardew was unable to. However, to a fan base growing in frustration as to the style of football being played, it is likely to be Hodgson doubling down and not wanting to lose rather than trying to win games on the front foot, the agitation will not subside. The paucity of chances created and a reluctance to make positive changes will likely continue while the manager looks to drag the squad to the 40-point mark.

READ MORE: January Transfer Window -- Right-Back Where We Started

The growing concern is that the club is sleep-walking into a relegation fight, completely unprepared for what lies ahead. Having 30 points on the board in January is impressive as a standard – but much less so when the gap to the bottom three is just six points. We are not looking at a season where 36 points will keep a team safe. It could well take more – we need three wins and the moment, the way the team is playing, those three wins may be some way off.

The transfer window was idle rather than ideal; compounded with the team’s current form, it raises a lot of questions about the club which in turns creates greater worry. Is there money available for transfers? An instalment from the Aron Wan-Bissaka transfer to Manchester United was assigned to Macquarie Bank in late 2019 – was this done with the intention of spending on transfers or for a different reason?

If it was for transfers, why was activity left so late in the window when the need was apparent since August 2019? Are the players being sourced by the Sporting Director and his recruitment team of the right standard? Does the club have a transfer strategy? Is the manager aligned with these two?

The defeat to Sheffield United served to highlight deficiencies. Chris Wilder has a newly promoted side sitting in fifth place in the league. As the transfer window came to a close, they broke their transfer record to sign Sander Berge. Wilder then dropped arguably their best player this season, John Lundstram, to accommodate Berge. Their manager also changed the team’s shape at 0-0 and made proactive substitutions as the second half went on. On and off the pitch, we could see Sheffield United having things we do not have.

Ultimately, the frustration from the January Transfer Window coupled with another inept home league performance have left a lot of unanswered questions around and blame is being thrown in different directions often on basis of preconception. As ever with these things, there is blame to be apportioned with all of the key decision makers within the club. And we are now missing the one thing that often helped cut through the tension – communication from the club.

There are so many unknowns at the moment which leads to a feeling of uncertainty. It leaves a sense of feeling that something needs to change. The club cannot let complacency blossom in this environment.

Listen to this week's FYP Podcast here

Better communication is key if Palace want to get to grips with the whirlwind of frustration that's engulfing Selhurst Park, says Robert Sutherland.

Listen to the latest FYP Podcast below...

UPDATE: 10 days after this article was published Palace released an in-depth and ranging article with Steve Parish answering many of the points in this article. It's well worth a watch below...

It looks like it's been a disastrous January transfer window, so we asked Carl Mortimer to pick amongst the wreckage.

It’s been 7 months and 3 days or, 312,480 minutes or, 5208 hours or, 217 days since we sold our first choice, highly talented right-back Aaron Wan-Bissaka for £50m and, to this day, we haven’t replaced him.

And as you’re reading this, that time is going up.

I cannot imagine any other club in the Premier League doing that without having an immediate replacement lined up or having a strategy in place to sign one as soon as the next window had opened.

Not only that, but Palace chairman Steve Parish once said in 2018. “If you stand still, you go backwards”

It’s not just a right-back that is the issue. Palace have needed some players who can score a goal to share the load, and some extra bodies due to this unusual injury crisis.

So, the question is, what do Crystal Palace want to be? Do they want to keep signing 29+ year olds and just getting by year-on-year or, do they have an ambition to build a team full of future stars with massive sell on value a la Leicester who are flipping experts at it?

Watching other teams like Brighton, Southampton, Wolves, Aston Villa and even Brentford having some sort of plan or a future model, by signing young players from around the UK and Europe, becomes a little grating to say the least.

The board and some fans may argue “we’re safely in mid table” and they’re right. However, some could argue back that, with the football being played we are in a false position. Palace were completely outplayed by both Brighton and Southampton at Selhurst, in what were two pretty embarrassing performances where we seriously looked like a newly promoted team -- and yet we’ve been in the Premier League for seven seasons now.

READ MORE: Wilfried Zaha is Crystal Palace's 'bravest' player, says Paddy McCarthy

And, it’s no surprise that we are very likely to lose Wilfried Zaha soon, with the club showing him no reason as to why he should be staying.

It’s clear that the ambitions of this club and Wilf are poles apart. If Palace showed some intent over the last couple of windows and did get (for example) Yannick Carrasco, Jarrod Bowen, Eberechi Eze, Nathan Ferguson, etc Wilf would either be happy to have that quality around him or, he wouldn’t be so missed if he were to leave.

Additionally, we’d have a big sum of money to spend. But given the lack of signings, if he were to leave, Palace have no one that we could look to and say “he can fill the void” again. So is there a plan?

Palace needed a striker, and as a result signed Cenk Tosun on a 5-month loan deal – but this just screams of filling a gap as cheaply as possible. That seems to be our model.

I gave up on the club’s transfer policy in the summer when we sold Wan-Bissaka and no replacement came in. That was just idiotic and pure complacency in my eyes, and that’s why i didn’t expect anything this January.

Key questions still remain; why hasn’t Christian Benteke been moved on yet, and worst still given a new contract? Why was Connor Wickham given another year then shipped out? Why does it take a major injury crisis for Roy Hodgson to play a young, up-and-coming talent?  

Take Jairo Riedwald for example. On that front, Hodgson takes no credit for me. I’ve spoken to many other fans and we’ve said for ages “Jairo could push Patrick van Aanholt and do a job at left back.” I bet that, had Van Aanholt not suffered an injury, we wouldn’t have seen Jairo at all.

Parish used to be very vocal in the media – in in articles, on talkSPORT and on podcasts – but whether it’s the stress of the job now, the Americans causing him grief, or he just can’t be dealing with the aggro of Palace twitter, the silence from a once very vocal chairman is a telling sign that maybe things aren’t as rosy behind the scenes as they once used to be.

Whatever it is, something needs to give because Crystal Palace Football Club are standing still at the moment, and with an ever ageing squad it’ll only be a matter of time before it catches up with us  and we’re left with several players over the age of 30 on big wages that we can’t sell.

I can’t wait for the next window.

Listen to the latest FYP Podcast here